Answer with a cooperative from your own district if you can — ask at home, or look at the label of the milk, honey or handloom cloth your family buys. A good answer names the cooperative, says who its members are, and says what changed in their lives.
Sample answer: In my district there is the Lijjat Papad centre, part of Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad. It began in 1959 in Mumbai with seven women and ₹80 of borrowed money. Today, thousands of women members roll papad in their own homes and neighbourhood centres. Every member is a co-owner and shares in the earnings, so a woman who could not leave home for a factory job still earns her own income. Many members in my town have used that income to pay their children’s school fees.
Well-known Indian cooperatives you could name instead:
| Cooperative | Where | Who its members are | What it changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amul | Anand, Gujarat | Milk farmers, a great many of them women | Ended the hold of middlemen; farmers now own the factories that process their own milk |
| Nandini (KMF) | Karnataka | Village milk producers | Daily milk payments reach lakhs of rural households |
| Sudha | Bihar | Dairy farmers of the Bihar milk unions | A steady market for milk in districts with very small landholdings |
| Aavin | Tamil Nadu | Village dairy cooperative societies | Milk collection centres within walking distance of the herd |
| Verka | Punjab | Milk producers of the Punjab unions | A second income beside wheat and paddy farming |
| Kevi | Nagaland | Dairy farmers in the hills | A cash income in a region with little organised industry |
| Lijjat Papad | Started in Mumbai, now nationwide | Women members, who are also the owners | Work that can be done from home, and an income of one’s own |
| SEWA cooperatives | Ahmedabad, Gujarat | Women vendors, weavers, waste-pickers, home workers | Savings, bank loans and fair prices for workers who had none |
| IFFCO | Nationwide | Farmers’ cooperative societies | Fertiliser produced and supplied by the farmers’ own organisation |